


kiss with a fist

by ultraviolentluv



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexuality, Blood licking, Fights, Fist Fights, Homophobic Language, Internal Monologue, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Mild Blood, Repressed Crush, Rough Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 10:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20080939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolentluv/pseuds/ultraviolentluv
Summary: (Mostly follows canon of season 1 but with changes.)Realizing Steve likes guys is the easy part. Admitting he likesJonathan Byers?Therein lies the impossible task.





	kiss with a fist

**Author's Note:**

> back to stonathan again boyz skdjhfdsfkj
> 
> i wanna say that i don't take credit for this idea. this came straight from the other swifties doing coke in the darkroom. tibby and percy and taylor i love u guys. this fic is YOURS
> 
> basically follows the plot of s1e6 but things change up a little bit. idk.

Realizing he likes guys is the easy part. That much, he can be certain of. For as far back as he can remember, for every crush he’s had on a girl, he’s had another on a boy. Sure, he can’t  _ say  _ anything about it to anyone, but at least he knows. He lets himself indulge every now and then, to space out in math class staring at the back of Kyle Carson’s head, or to imagine what it’d be like if he and Jacob Wallace made out after basketball practice. Unrequited fantasies, but they keep him happy.

When he starts dating Nancy Wheeler, he lets everything else fall away. The only thing that matters to him is her, her smile, her voice, her lips. Tommy and Carol make fun of them relentlessly, sure, but he doesn’t care. It’s puppy love. He has eyes only for her.

Which must be why, when he sees Jonathan Byers eyeing them in the hallway, he feels the pit of his stomach tighten up. He doesn’t like the way Jonathan looks at him and Nancy, doesn’t like the way Nancy’s so sweet to him when he could never be. Not on Tommy and Carol’s time, anyways. Jonathan the freak is not about to receive any amity from Steve. He probably killed his brother.

He doesn’t understand why sometimes, when he’s trying to fall asleep, he thinks about Jonathan’s jawline or the ways his fingers look hooked around his camera. He’s had a lot of crushes on a lot of people, and there is no  _ way  _ this is crush. That’s not what this is. This is  _ Jonathan Byers  _ we’re talking about _ ,  _ not one of his hot teammates. He ignores the aching in the bottom of his stomach and assumes he must just be sick. He  _ must  _ be seriously sick in the head if he falls asleep thinking about Jonathan. He never lets himself live it down.

Luckily, he has Nancy to keep his mind off of things. When he’s kissing her, he’s most definitely not thinking about Jonathan. He absolutely doesn’t think about what Jonathan’s lips might feel like, or how it’d feel to run his thumb around his jawline, or what it’d be like to have Jonathan’s fingers in his hair. He kisses Nancy a little harder and does  _ not  _ think about tracing his fingers down Jonathan’s neck. He doesn’t try to imagine what Jonathan might sound like in bed. It’d be fucked up if he thought about that sort of stuff.

God, he is  _ fucked. _

He keeps it under control. He stuffs that shit  _ down.  _ He doesn’t look at Jonathan when Nancy talks to him. He gets a little more satisfaction out of smashing Jonathan’s camera than he should, but it makes him feel sick at the same time. Everything about it makes him feel ill. He locks it away in his head and swallows the key. The key aches his stomach, though, and it scratches him up from the inside out.

So the night he comes over to Nancy’s expecting to crawl through her window and instead sees her with Jonathan’s arm around her, his vision goes absolutely red. He drives home with a lead foot on the gas pedal and an iron grip on the wheel. He feels acid rise up in the back of his throat, and he has to smoke a cigarette (the ones he keeps in his car to pretend he likes smoking) to hold himself together on the drive. He walks straight to his backyard and throws the cigarette down into the swimming pool, hands shaking. How  _ could  _ she? How could Nancy  _ do  _ this?

He never tells anyone, but he jumps into the swimming pool with all his clothes on and sits at the bottom until he absolutely has to come up for air. He beats his palm against the edge of the pool and buries his face underwater to hide the fact that he’s crying.  _ Stupid. Stupid. All of this for fucking nothing. _

Once he’s calmed down enough to try and get some sleep, he puts on dry clothes and thinks just a little too hard about the blanket draped over Nancy’s shoulders, the gentle hand Jonathan placed on her back. He buries himself underneath his blanket and clenches his jaw until the need to cry melts away. He sleeps on his side and tries to think about what the hell he can do. Tommy and Carol and Nicole will have to know, he supposes. Maybe they’ll have a good idea. Maybe being with them will take his mind off of the fact that he’s not sure who he’s more jealous of: Jonathan or Nancy.

Tommy’s “solution” doesn’t really seem like that great of an idea, but Steve’s chest aches too bad to fight him on it. They go into town and graffiti the movie theater with something that feels right in the moment, but Steve knows is a little too harsh. Maybe it isn’t what it looked like, he tells himself. Maybe this is all for nothing.

He stands behind the three of his friends silently as they have their fun. Right on cue, Nancy and Jonathan come running down the alleyway. Carol and Tommy acknowledge Nancy’s arrival with obnoxious jests, but Steve silently stares down at her, jaw clenched. If he doesn’t keep control of this situation, it could all end  _ so  _ poorly. And then, Nancy slaps him. It doesn’t hurt as bad as it could, but it still stings.

“What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” Nancy demands. She looks like she’s on the verge of tears.

Steve wastes no time. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with  _ you?  _ I was worried about you.” He feels a lump form in his throat and he does his best to just talk over it. “I can’t believe that I was actually worried about you.”

A thousand thoughts swirl in his mind all at once. He has to keep up this charade, to project everything he’s feeling onto Nancy for the time being. Tommy and Carol and Nicole would probably end him if they knew there was more to it. So, for now, there’s not. The key remains swallowed.

“What are you talking about?” Nancy asks. As Carol gives her a snotty remark, Jonathan walks closer to the group. Steve’s eyes land on him for the briefest of moments and he has to force himself to look away, to stare down at Nancy. He feels his heart start to pound.

“You came by last night,” Nancy says, putting the pieces together. Steve doesn’t need the reminder. He doesn’t need to experience his anguished confusion all over again, not here, not now. “Look, I don’t know what you think you saw, but it  _ wasn’t  _ like that.”

He believes her. Really and truly, he does. He wants to believe that it’s anything but that, because honestly, he’s not one to speak against having feelings for more than one person. Nancy should be spray painting shit about him on the side of the building, if anything. The closer Jonathan steps to him, the more ready he feels to rip his own skin off.  _ Channel the rage.  _ “What, you just let him into your room to… study?”

“Or for another pervy photo session?” Tommy scoffs. Steve swallows hard.  _ This is good. If I break up with her in front of them, they’ll let me breathe. _

“We were just–"

“You were just what? Finish that sentence.” He hides his shaking hands in his pockets and musters up some tough-guy courage. “Finish. The sentence.” Nancy looks up at him helplessly, and it occurs to him that he could very well be ruining his entire life right now. It doesn’t matter anymore, he decides. He already ruined his life when he decided that Jonathan Byers was worth pining over.  _ Repress it. Shove that shit down.  _ Nancy doesn’t respond to him; she can’t even look at him. “Go to hell, Nancy,” he spits, hoping that should do it. That somehow, that should solve everything. He can go back to sleeping with random girls from school and impressing his friends with how funny and tough he is. He can pretend like he doesn’t even know who Jonathan Byers is.

“Come on, Nancy, let’s just leave,” Jonathan says, pulling Nancy’s arm. Steve makes eye contact with him for a split second and suddenly, he feels as though he’s doused himself in gasoline. He can’t stop himself from exploding.

“You know what, Byers? I’m actually kind of impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you’re just a little screw-up like your father.” He shoves Jonathan in the shoulder and tries to swallow the bitter taste in his mouth. If he says these things about Jonathan first, nobody can say them about him. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that house is full of screw-ups. You know, I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised. A ton of screw-ups in your family. I mean, your mom? I’m not even surprised what happened to your brother. I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you, but the Byers, their family is a disgrace to the entire–”

Jonathan socks him right in the jaw. Well,  _ fuck. _ He holds his hand up to his nose and stares at Jonathan for a second.  _ This is your chance. Prove yourself. Show Tommy you’ve got it under control.  _ He lunges forward and shoves himself right into Jonathan, tackling him against a car. Everyone instantly starts shouting, and Steve feels a rush of rage wash through him. He throws Jonathan to the ground and he hears Tommy laugh.

“Get his ass, Harrington,” he cheers. But he starts walking away, taking Carol and Nicole with him. “Don’t get us arrested with you!”

Suddenly, it’s only Steve and Jonathan and Nancy left in the alleyway.  _ This is not how I planned for things to turn out.  _ Nancy screams at Steve to stop, but he starts swinging at Jonathan anyways. “Leave, Nancy!” he shouts at her. “Go call the fucking police, huh? Is that what you’re gonna do? Go to hell!”

Jonathan flips them over and punches Steve in the jaw again. Nancy runs down the alleyway, presumably to get help. It’s just the two of them now, throwing fists at the other. To what? Prove a point? Every feeling Steve’s ever had about Jonathan rises up in his chest as they stand on their feet again.

“Fuck you, Steve,” Jonathan says. He punches Steve again, this time right in the nose. His nose starts gushing blood and it gets on the back of Jonathan’s hand, covering his knuckles. Steve groans and covers his nose with his arm.

“Fuck you right back, Byers,” he hisses. He wipes the blood away with his sleeve and reaches forward, grabbing Jonathan by the collar. He shoves him back against the brick wall and leans in close. There are a thousand things he could say right now, but none of them come to mind. He hates him. He hates him so fucking  _ much,  _ but there’s not even a reason to. He knows Jonathan wasn’t doing anything with Nancy last night. There’s nothing left in his veins but pure jealousy. “I–”

“You what?” Jonathan says. He shoves him away and looks down at his hand, covered in Steve’s blood, then looks back up towards him. Steve watches as the gears turn in Jonathan’s head, and finally, something must click into place. Jonathan starts to  _ smirk.  _ He’s never seen anything but a frown on his face, but now, he’s  _ smirking _ . It gives Steve a strange feeling that he’s not sure how to describe. Then, Jonathan raises his knuckles to his mouth and licks at the blood. Steve feels like he’s hallucinating.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Jonathan doesn’t say anything. He simply pops a knuckle into his mouth and sucks the blood the rest of the way off. He's so smug about it, like this is entirely normal. Steve stares at his mouth in shock.  _ This shouldn’t be hot. _

He shoves him back against the wall again, but this time, it’s different. This time, he shoves his mouth against Jonathan’s, teeth bashing together. He can taste the blood on Jonathan’s lips and it only makes him kiss him harder. Jonathan grabs at Steve’s hair and kisses him back just as hard. Steve feels everything finally unbox itself in his head, like he’s opened the floodgates and every secret thought he’s ever had about Jonathan is pouring out of him. He moans into Jonathan’s mouth.

“Fuck you,” Jonathan mumbles, then goes right back to kissing Steve. He grabs him by his jacket and moves to push him up against the car. They’re covered in each other’s blood, but they hardly seem to care. Jonathan tugs on Steve’s hair and Steve pants against his mouth.

“Yeah,” Steve says, pulling away. His lips feel numb and his heart is beating harder than he’s ever felt it. “Fuck me, right?”

Jonathan stares at him, then pulls off. They stare at each other for a moment, but turn and look towards a police car as it pulls up, lights flashing. “What’s going on here, boys?” Callahan says, stepping out of the car.

Steve’s ready to take the blame, but Jonathan speaks first. “Nothing,” he says. “We just had a disagreement, is all. Everything’s sorted now.”

Steve looks over to Jonathan’s face and feels his stomach flip around. Everything’s sorted now. God only knows what that could mean for him.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is strangerlesbians lmao


End file.
